


Insomnia Falls

by bluewerewolfprose, Nicolareed



Series: Drabbles In Darkness [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Breakfast, Canonical Character Death, Chocobros - Freeform, Drabble, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fishing, Grief/Mourning, Ignis threw out his shoes, Insomnia, Noctis is bad at boat trading, Noctis sank a boat, Not Quite Home in Darkness, One Shot, Other, good memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 06:52:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10961988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluewerewolfprose/pseuds/bluewerewolfprose, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nicolareed/pseuds/Nicolareed
Summary: In which our heroes lose everything and reminisce about fishing.





	Insomnia Falls

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Not Quite Home In Darkness](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9365735) by [Nicolareed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nicolareed/pseuds/Nicolareed). 



> Thanks so much again for your lovely comments. If you haven't read Nicolareed's beautiful fic Not Quite Homes In Darkness, please go read it now, it's amazing! I love being her beta so much cos I get to read it before all of you mwahaha.  
> I promise I'll write some more happy/cute drabbles real soon, just had to get past all these Insomnia feels first...  
> Don't forget to subscribe to the series Drabbles in Darkness for all my Final Fantasy drabbles, or just subscribe to Nicola or me! :)  
> Thanks for reading!  
> 

_Inspired by Chapter 9 of Not Quite Home In Darkness_

* * *

 

 _How many times will I have to see Insomnia fall?_ Noct wondered, staring into the fire, his uneaten breakfast growing cold next to him. _How many times will my father have to die? Gladio’s father? Ignis’ friends? Prompto’s?_ For a moment, Noct had the unsettling sensation of almost understanding Ardyn. Imagine how many deaths, how many battles, how many losses he’d experienced over two millennia. It would be enough to destroy anyone, Daemons or no Daemons. Perhaps the same thing would happen to him—perhaps after a while you just stopped caring. Right now, though, the pain was as sharp and fresh as it had been the first time. Somehow, he’d still hoped that it would be different.

He looked up suddenly as Gladio chuckled. The sound was so out of place it took Noct a moment to realise it was a laugh.

“Do you remember that time you decided you wanted to go fishing down that little backwater in the northern suburbs?” he asked, still chuckling while he stared at the fire. “And your dad wouldn’t let you, so you woke me up at two in the morning?”

“I remember that!” said Prompto, a smile creeping tentatively across his pale face. “You made me stay up all night so I could wake you up at the right time.” His smile grew, as though more sure of itself, some colour coming back into his freckled cheeks. Noct groaned and covered his face, but he couldn’t help smiling as well.

“Gods, that boat was so bad,” he said, remembering the rusted metal hull and the engine that didn’t work. “I paid so much for that thing, and it sank as soon as we were in the middle of the river.” He grinned, embarrassed. Prompto snorted with laughter.

“You were so proud of yourself for getting a boat,” he said. “There was a perfectly good platform just down the river, but no, you just had to fish from a boat.” Noct drew himself up regally and looked down his nose at Prompto in mock indignation.

“Excuse me, it was a perfect plan,” he said. “Until Gladio sat his gigantic ass in the boat. You and me would’ve been fine.”

“Hey!” objected Gladio, reaching across and shoving Noct in the shoulder. “The holes in the boat had nothing to do with my ass.” Ignis shook his head at the memory of 16-year-old Noct’s horrible planning abilities. Thank goodness that some things had changed.

“If I recall correctly, Clarus and an entire squad of guards located us about ten minutes after we had succumbed to the water,” said Ignis. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man trying quite so hard not to laugh when he was supposed to be angry.”

“Well, we did look pretty funny,” said Prompto, picking up his bowl and finally starting to eat. Noct suddenly realised he was hungry as well. As he ate his porridge, he couldn’t help smiling at the memory of their four bedraggled figures being berated by Gladio’s father for their recklessness as they were marched back to the palace, to be berated some more by Regis. Neither of them had seemed to be really upset by the adventure—if anything, Regis had seemed almost proud of his son for showing so much initiative. Noct had conveniently left out the part where he’d paid ten times the boat’s value, or the part where he’d made Prompto stay awake so he didn’t have to.

The mood around the fire grew sombre again, but less desolate than before. There were good memories in with the grief. Their home, their people, might be gone, but what it meant to them hadn’t changed.

“I wonder if it’s still down there,” mused Prompto, when he’d scraped his bowl clean.

“The boat?” said Gladio. “Probably. It’s not like that little backwash was all that clean to start with.” Noct snorted.

“It was mostly rust when we sank it,” he said. “It’s probably disintegrated by now.”

“I doubt we would have caught any fish worth talking about in that quagmire anyway, even if you didn’t have the bargaining skills of a three-legged centipede,” said Ignis, standing to collect the dishes. “It took days for me to get the mud out of your favourite jacket.” Gladio laughed aloud.

“Oh gods, Noct whined for a month when you threw his boots away.”

“They were my favourites,” Noct objected. “They could totally have been cleaned.”

“The soles were falling off, Noct,” said Ignis. “If I’d cleaned them, there would have been nothing left.”

“It wouldn’t have been so bad if I could get another pair,” said Noct, the familiar complaining note in his voice making the others smile fondly. “But the shop closed down. You remember, the one on The Avenue.” Noct stopped abruptly, remembering the bustle and noise in one of their favourite shopping districts. All gone now. There was another long silence, broken only by the crackling of the flames.

“Do we—” Prompto paused, as though not sure he wanted to continue. Noct looked up and raised an eyebrow. “Do we ever go back?” Prompto asked, his voice barely audible over the sound of the fire. Noct’s lips thinned as he stared down into the flames.

“We will if I have anything to do with it,” he said, looking back up at his friends, his eyes blazing. His three favourite people in the world were still here, still fighting. He hadn’t really thought about it, hadn’t thought about much beyond getting to the Arms and stopping Ardyn. But maybe there was more to it. Maybe, knowing what he knew, they could change everything. He sighed and let his head drop, running his hands through his hair. It was all too much, right now. He just wanted to mourn in peace. Or maybe never feel anything again.

“Well, until then, how ‘bout we play some King’s Knight,” suggested Prompto. “We were definitely getting somewhere with that weird little goblin thing last night.” Noct looked up and smiled gratefully. Some things, at least, were still just right, and his friends were one of them.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr @bluewerewolfprose, come say hi!


End file.
